GLASS (from AS. glees, Icel., OHG. glas, Ger. Glas; connected with Icel. filer, AS. glcer, amber, and ultimately with Eng. glare). The use of glass came to the West from the East, and for that reason there is a diversity of names among the Indo-European nations. In Greek the usual word is DaXos., of which the etymology is un certain. In Latin the word is vitrum, which also means woad, used for its blue dye, and perhaps points to the fact that the earliest glass known to the Romans was in the form of blue beads. Among the northern peoples the original name of the amber (OHG. glas) was transferred to the new material, and has given rise to the English glass. The French (verre) and most of the other Romance languages have kept the Latin name.
The manufacture of glass was known to the Egyptians at a very early date. Tombs of the fourth and fifth dynasties (c.4000 B.C.) show glass-blowers at work, and glazed pottery in the form of beads occurs in prehistoric times, though true glass first appears later in the form of opaque `paste,' and finally as transparent glass. 'The oldest example of dark-blue glass is a pend ant found at Naqada, which seems to date from the seventh dynasty, though no other specimens of this manufacture are known before the eigh teenth. The fullest information as to the proc esses and materials used by the Egyptians is furnished by the discovery of the glass-works at Tell el-Amarna, belonging to the eighteenth dy nasty. Here were found fritting-pans in which the first melting of the substances took place, and also many imperfectly fused frits. The in gredients used were silica, lime, alkalies, and copper carbonate, but the exact proportions needed to secure a given color do not seem to have been known, and the exact tint produced must have been largely a matter of chance. They did know, however, that river sand, from the presence of iron, gave a green tinge, and to avoid this used crushed quartz pebbles. After the mix ture had been fused until the colors began to ap pear, it was formed into cakes of paste, and these were again heated until the proper tint was reached. These cakes were fused in crucibles, and allowed to cool in them, so that the impurities rose to the surface or settled at the bottom. The crucibles were then broken away and the impure glass at the top and bottom chipped off, leaving a lump of glass, which was then broken up and softened so that it could be rolled into thick rods. These rods were then drawn out into slender rods or hollow tubes, or rolled into flat strips, and these rods or ribbons were used by the glass maker to produce beads, vases, or inlaid work. It is noticeable that the vases from this site were not blown, hut formed by coating a core of sand with melted glass, and pressing out the foot and lip by hand, while the decoration was produced by rolling in threads of colored glass. (Consult Petrie, Tell el-dniarna, London, 1894.) In gen
eral, glass was used for the manufacture of small objects, and especially for the imitation of pre cious stones, in which the later workmen attained extraordinary skill. Cutting and engraving were also early practiced. Apart from these independ ent uses of glass, it was very largely employed for inlaying, while an enamel or glaze on clay, stone, or wood was a favorite form of decoration from early times. A very large proportion of the scarabrei, amulets, and small ornaments found in Egypt or exported to foreign parts are of vari ous earths covered with a vitreous glaze, pro ducing the ware incorrectly termed 'Egyptian porcelain.' However empirical the methods of the Egyptians, there can be no doubt of the tech nical skill attained, and even in Roman times the Alexandiian glass-workers maintained their pre6minence. It was not till the Hellenistic pe riod that value seems to have been set on clear glass, for though known earlier, it is certain that Egyptian taste valued only the highly colored varieties.
Tns;NtCTA, Tyre and Sidon were celebrated for their glass, and Pliny (Hist. Nat.. 36, 190) locates its invention nt the mouth of the river Belus in Plurnicia. His story is that the crew of a ship laden with nitre landed nt this point, and when preparing to cook their food found no stones on which to rest the kettle. They there fore used lumps of nitre from the ship, and as these were fused with the fine sand a stream of liquid glass flowed nut. Class was certainly known long before the PlDrnicians manufactured it, and the bent of an ordinary fire would be quite insufficient to fuse glass, but the fact remains that the river Belus was always an inexhaustible mine for ancient glass-workers, and modern trav elers still describe the white sands heaped on each side of the stream. The glass-factories of Tyre and Sidon were among the most noted of ancient times and remained conspicuous under the Ro man emperors. Sidon is credited with the inven tion of mirrors. She certainly produced the best in the world in her time, and knew the value of manganese in making glass clear. The artisans of this city used the blowpipe, the lathe, the graver, and the casting-plate with splendid re sults. But the Phoenicians did little more than carry on the processes learned from the Egyp tians. They were not great artists, but skillful fabricators and traders, and as a result their glass is found throughout the Mediterranean. The date of any single piece is usually hard to determine, nor is it of great importance, as there are but slight variations in style at different periods and little advance in technical skill. In deed, it is often impossible to say whether a specimen is of Phonetician or Egyptian manufac ture, and some authorities maintain that there are no unquestionable examples of Phoenician glass before the Grxco-Roman period.